


should tell my friends when i love them

by hikash0



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Angst with a fluff ending, Child Neglect, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, bill denbrough's parents are shit, brief mention of the dreaded sewer orgy, eddie would die for bill denbrough, from me? shocking I know, no details basically giving it a little weight as the traumatizing event it was, pennywise is a petty bitch who can't lose gracefully, period typical homophobia and references to HIV & AIDS, that's still the tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-13 21:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20589212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikash0/pseuds/hikash0
Summary: Bill is sick again. Eddie won’t look away. This time, he won't forget.In which Eddie takes on Bill’s sickness so that Bill can survive.





	should tell my friends when i love them

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenjameskirk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenjameskirk/gifts).
  * Inspired by [a setback or another comedown](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13068159) by [queenjameskirk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenjameskirk/pseuds/queenjameskirk). 

> an unofficial sequel. (please read the original for context, and also because it's very beautiful)
> 
> it's been two years since you gifted me everything I could ask for in a Sad Bill fic, and almost three since the lucky day we became friends. soon we will meet, and no one will be safe from the collective angst our brains create. 
> 
> to honor your arrival, in my customarily sad and purple-prose riddled fashion, I have added this snapshot of kaspbrough to the masterpiece you started. 
> 
> dedicated to Mac, you're a legend. I can't wait to see IT Pt2 with ya so we can inspire each other even more. It's gonna be a hell of a weekend.

my steps keep splitting my grief

through these solipsistic moods

i should call my parents when i think of them

should tell my friends when i love them

_ -old friends, pinegrove _

It’s the evening of the annual Halloween dance and Eddie is helping Bill back into his costume under the harsh fluorescence of the gross Derry High bathroom. The zipper up the spine of his jumpsuit keeps getting stuck just out of Bill’s reach.

Bill has opted to dress up like a skeleton, with self-applied, heavy black and white greasepaint obscuring all features but his blue-grey eyes. His waterline is rimmed red and irritated where the cheap makeup keeps leaking into the corners of his pink tear ducts. Bill can’t stop pressing the back of his knuckles into the corners of his watering eyes in an attempt to clear them out.

“This was a buh-bad idea,”

Bill scratches idly at his cheek and the dried black pigment pilles and flakes under his fingernails. Eddie intercepts his hand on a path to be stuck in his eye for the umpteenth time, grimacing at the idea of all that dirt and bacteria on Bill’s fingers, shivering at the threat of conjunctivitis.

“I’ve got wet-wipes. Bill, you should just clean it off, the dance is almost over anyways,” 

Bill reaches for the proffered wet-wipe gratefully. Eddie winces again as he slap-drags the whole thing over his cheek in one clumsy motion, instead of swiping gently outwards from the clean-to-dirty areas like the instructions on the packaging direct. Bill is more smearing the cosmetics around, rather than actually picking them up off his skin. 

Eddie watches this in a kind of detached horror and fascination until Bill makes a frustrated sound and it spurns Eddie into action. He almost wants to laugh at how useless Bill is at this kind of stuff, only Eddie doesn’t because he knows no one ever showed him the proper way to begin with.

“Here, let me,”

Bill huffs air out of his nose and spins so that his back is to the mirror and the curve of his spine rests against the rim of the sink. Eddie sees water seeping there and disappearing into the black fabric but he doesn’t comment on what he imagines is an uncomfortable wet patch. 

Bill hunches over and Eddie works quietly in the harsh lit space. The low hum of the ceiling vent and a periodic drip from old pipes is their only accompaniment. He has to lean up on his tiptoes to reach Bill’s face. So tall, jeez. Did Bill grow another inch when Eddie wasn’t looking?

Bill's face starts to come into view beneath the greasepaint and it looks grey. Dye, Eddie thinks. Just like Bill to not use skin safe pigment. But then a few more determined swipes over the bridge of his nose and Bill’s freckles appear, painted on a canvas of sallow grey skin. Eddie frowns. He rubs a little harder, looks a little closer.

As if triggered by the scrutiny, Bill's face seems to take on its normal pinkish hue again right before Eddie’s eyes.

“D-done?” Bill asks, drawing away slightly, his voice sounds croaky the way it didn't before.

“Not yet, gotta get your dark circles. You look like a raccoon,”

Bill lets out a soft laugh, then grips his hands on the edge of the sink. Eddie thinks he seems tense somehow, he’s smiling but his hold on the porcelain is tight. Almost like he’s holding himself back from leaning on Eddie.

“Bill? You alright?”

“Yeah, Eddie,”

Bill stays quiet for the rest of the time it takes Eddie to wipe away his painted raccoon markings. It could be the stain of makeup, but Eddie doubts even greasepaint can explain the underside of Bill’s eye sockets, hollow-set as they are with such deep dark circles. Eddie uses the excuse of wiping away more paint to stroke the path of Bill’s over-sharp cheekbone up the side of his face, seeking truth there. Or something.

Bill avoids his eyes, in shyness maybe, or apprehension. Eddie can’t tell but he keeps searching until finally he gets Bill to meet them, and something gives. 

Bill coughs abruptly, like he might have choked on something. 

“Ah-actually Eh-Eddie, I think I’m-”

Bill swallows thickly. Looks like he’s choking something down into his chest. Another cough.

“I think I’m not feeling s-s-so good, sh-shouldn’t have d-owned those two rootbeer floats buh-back t-to b-ba-ck so fast. But R-Richie dared me, you know?”

“Yeah, Richie, I know,” Eddie replies.

“My stomach hurts,” Bill continues.

Eddie looks at him, searching.

“What about Richie’s afterparty? He rented Halloween one through four. He says we have to get caught up before seeing _ The Revenge of Michael Myers _ at the Aladdin on Tuesday,”

Bill nods, he closes his eyes and it looks like something hurts between the pinch of his brows.

“I know but re-really I...my stomach... You g-go on wuh-without me. I’m just going to head hh-h-ome,”

Eddie looks at Bill again, how his smile is tight. How there is sweat collecting at his hairline, dampening the roots of auburn strands and plastering them to his temple.

“Nah,” Eddie shakes his head.

“What?” Bill asks.

“Nuh uh, I’ll walk you home,”

“Eh-Eddie I’m fine, you don’t hu-have to miss out bec-because of m-m-me,”

“Oh I hate those slashers anyways. All the shrill screaming reminds me of ma. Besides, what if you faint?”

Bill raises an eyebrow. 

“Eh-Eddie I’m not guh-gonna faint,”

“Okay well, what if you puke all over Silver, slip in your own vomit and die?”

Bill oggles him, eyes very blue.

“Yuh-you’ve been spending too much time with Richie. I duh-didn’t even think you could make a puke joke,”

“Well I can. Come on, let’s skip out. We can tell Richie what’s up on the way,” 

\---

The lights of Bill’s house are completely out. Eddie lets Bill pretend he doesn’t notice the still pause, the hesitation in Bill’s demeanor the closer they get to the walkway. They’ve barely crossed under the porch awning and onto the welcome matt when Bill quickly turns. He has his back to the door and a smile slapped across his mouth, hands behind him, one still on the knob.

“Le-let’s go to Richie’s party af-after all Eds. I just got my sss-second wind. I could go for a round of Monopoly, po-p-p-popcorn, masked murders? Yeah?” 

It’s over bright and Eddie has the urge to shield his eyes because Bill is doing that thing he does, projecting himself in the image of what he thinks others want to see.

Bill launches himself off the porch and past Eddie, skidding to a stop next to Silver before Eddie has a chance to say anything. He doesn’t get it. Bill had been so docile the whole way home. He willingly admitted he wasn’t feeling so hot. Basically a small miracle. 

Eddie looks at the door, with its three dead quiet window slits. At the wood, down at the doorknob. 

The doorknob. 

No way. It couldn’t be that. 

Eddie's hand is stretching out before he can really think about it. To check, just to see because it’s barely 9pm on Halloween night. Surely not. Surely it’s not-

“Eh-Eddie! Come on! I’m gu-guh-gonna leave you b-behind!”

Eddie startles and turns to Bill who is already on Silver, one leg up on the pedal, leaning over at a steep angle because the bike, as always, is too big for him. He’s panting a little and there is a tinge of panic to his voice, Eddie sees the blue glint of his eyes flick from Eddie to the door. The realization hits Eddie like a freight train. He was right.

The door is locked and Bill, who has no spare key, doesn’t want Eddie to witness the spectacle of him crawling inside through his own bedroom window like a visitor rather than a resident. A part of Eddie wonders if Bill is even fit enough for the climb.

Eddie trots quickly to Bill’s side without saying a thing. Even if he is now made up of nothing but a twitchy outrage, and clammy sadness collected to burst, at some unforeseen future point, beneath his nerves.

The door is locked and Eddie knows Bill well enough to tell he is burning in shame, bruising in soft hurt, hiding behind a blinding, confident, hollow light.

He hugs onto Bill too hard, suddenly hating Bill’s costume choice because the bone pattern on his jumpsuit reflects too perfectly the hard ridge of Bill’s spine that Eddie feels pressing against his quickly heaving chest. 

In a flash of color and feeling Eddie remembers the stretch of a thin shirt over Bill’s boney back as he played piano. 

He remembers the haphazard fold of clean laundry unevenly stored by a child’s hand in Bill’s dresser. A rattling bag full of geometry homework Eddie lied about not understanding, and applying Vicks Vapor Rub over the prominent knobs of a freckled spine, before tucking Big Bill into bed.

Eddie reaches blindly into his fanny pack and pulls out his aspirator, he huffs a deep blast of the camphor and water vapor as he helps Bill shift weight, cycling quickly into the night, away from the empty, locked, Denbrough house.

“Hi-ho Silver, Away!” Bill shouts.

Only, to Eddie, it sounds like the accidental hollowing of the wind.

\---

“No, no, no, it doesn’t make sense,”

A few days later Eddie is pacing his bedroom, a litany of anxiety pacing likewise in his skull. He holds a found scrap of paper up to his eyes on which he has chicken scratched some too-vague notes.

_ ‘Bill is sick. Don’t forget,’ _

He licks his lips again. They’re going to chap if he doesn’t stop. Bill is sick. Don’t forget. What on earth does it mean? Eddie is sure that Bill isn’t. Sick that is. Today at school he looked fine. Right as rain, eyes Blue as a June sky.

Yet past Eddie wrote this note, dated back to the Halloween dance, and left it somewhere future Eddie would find it. So what does it mean? Bill is sick. _ What the heck does that mean! _

Eddie decides to call Bill. If Bill is sick Eddie will be able to tell, to hear it over the phone. Surely.

So he picks up the receiver to his personal telephone, something he convinced _ (threatened) _his Ma to get him after the whole broken arm incident, and dials the Denbroughs.

When the voice that answers is pitched low and adult, and very much not Bill-

“Zack Denbrough speaking,”

Eddie freezes up.

“Uh,”

“Hello, who is this?”

Eddie swallows thickly before pressing on. If he can stand up to his Ma he can stand up to Bill’s parents. His mind supplies help. A sudden bolt of fuel to feed his determination. _ Locked the door, remember? _Unlike the meaning of the scrap of paper, this is something Eddie does recall and it helps him be brave.

“This is Eddie,”

There’s an unnaturally long pause. Eddie can practically see Bill’s dad looking at the receiver with that blank uncomprehending expression. Mind drifting like a ship in the fog. Floating. 

“Eddie Kaspbrak, Sonia Kaspbrak’s son?” Eddie presses on, undeterred. “Is Bill home?”

“Oh, Eddie of course. Bill…”

It’s as vague as an exhale. The presence behind the word little more than steam in the shape of a thought escaping the container of a brain. Eddie clutches the receiver of the phone hard and wants to scream. 

_ Oh come on! Bill, your son? The only one you’ve got left! Come on, this is ridiculous! _

“Bill is…somewhere,”

Eddie bites back the growl of frustration and pushes on with a veneer of politeness that children must always and no matter how dire the situation, maintain with adults lest they be dismissed as hysterical or bratty spoiled.

“He was sick at school today. I’m calling to see if he’s doing better?”

It’s a fib but Eddie has that chicken scratch note, a note he must have written for a damn good reason. Bill is sick, don’t forget. Bill is sick.

“I don’t know if he’s home,”

_ Then go check! _Eddie nearly screams. Only of course he doesn’t.

“Let me just...hang on a minute,”

Finally, he's getting somewhere. Eddie thinks. Final-

The click of the receiver is enough of a shock that Eddie fumbles the scrap of paper he’s holding. It flutters in a series of arcs and lands under his dresser.

He stares at the phone in his hand. Utterly gobsmacked. Eddie has only been hung up on a couple of times in his entire fourteen years, both accidents the result of an over-excited Richie jumping the gun on plans to meet up.

Bill’s dad wouldn’t have. Adults just don't do things like that unless they're having a fight, the way Eddie sometimes sees on his Ma’s soaps.

No, it was an accident. It’s raining after all. The power lines must have cut out, or the Denbroughs were running the washing machine and the microwave at the same time, in old houses sometimes breakers flip off unexpectedly. He’s gone to check on Bill, he wouldn’t flat out hang up. Not after what Eddie just-

“Eddiebear!”

His mother's voice cuts mercilessly through his thoughts.

“Dinner Eddie!”

Eddie’s eyes flit around the room, searching for something to stall with, and then to the phone droning like a dying insect in his hand. He's got to call back, call back and keep calling until he gets Bill on the line.

The phone drones and his mother calls him shrilly for the third time in as many seconds. Eddie closes his eyes tight, distressed. Shut up, be quiet all of you. Eddie has something important to do, something vital to remember. 

“Eddie? Is something the matter?”

“No, momma. I'm fine!”

Eddie slams the receiver down forcefully, no longer able to stand the buzz of the dead dial tone. He bends down, crouching next to his dresser and reaches out his hand, hovering over the handle to the bottom drawer. Eddie’s movements slow down to a cool freeze and something trickles out of his brain like sand. He can't remember what he was looking for.

The sound of his ma’s footsteps, heavy but tentative on the first three stairs, like Eddie is some kind of temperamental monster who needs white-gloved handling instantly take up all of his mind. He walks quickly down the stairs to interrupt another bout of Sonia Kaspbrak’s worried nagging.

\---

They’re at lunch in the cafeteria on another Tuesday. Bill talks between sips of plain milk and steals thin fries off of Richie's tray like a sparrow. One hand vaguely covers his mouth between chews, and the other is pressed to his chest. It’s weird, Eddie thinks. Like Bill is holding something in. He hunches his shoulders every once in a while, and the tendons of his neck stand out with the effort of repressing...something.

It’s a cough, Eddie soon realizes, as Bill takes a poorly timed sip of milk and fails to hold on to the rattle within his chest.

He launches into a coughing fit that shakes his whole body. Richie and Stan draw away from him with little matching expressions of surprise. Richie puts a hand on Bill's back and whacks him hard a couple times between the shoulder blades. Stan hands him a napkin from the dispenser.

Bill hacks gratefully into the napkin and when it comes away Eddie balks. Thick strands of green, almost yellow gunk spatter the fabric. There, a spot of reddish brown, or is it blood. Is that a blood clot on the napkin in Bill’s hand?

“S-sorry,” Bill says when he's done, looking around sheepishly. “Choked,”

Bill crumples the offending evidence quick as a magician and tosses it with uncharacteristically good aim into the nearby trash. Eddie watches him like a hawk the rest of the period but Bill doesn’t slip up again.

After lunch Eddie stays behind with the pretext of visiting the nurse for an allergic reaction to something in the squash goulash. What he really does is rush to the garbage and start rifling through it like some kind of transient scavenger. 

Several seniors shoot him disgusted looks and malicious sniggers. Eddie feels his ears heat from mortification and revulsion at his own actions. It’s absolutely disgusting and an aggressive litany of all the potential diseases he’s contracting runs amok in his brain. He blindly touches a tray of someone’s discarded spaghetti, and the experience is like plunging his fingers into a swarm of clammy, chunky worms. Eddie jolts with a full body shudder and stiffens like a board.

It takes so much damn willpower not to withdraw his hand and sprint for the bathroom, to drown his arm in soap and hand sanitizer. A very shrill part of his brain, one that sounds an awful lot like his ma orders him to forget this outrageous and disgusting mission at once, to stop sticking his nose in Bill’s business and to go lie down in the nurses station where it is peaceful, clean and safe. 

Of course Eddie doesn’t give in, he can’t. Bill is more important. Eddie has to find the napkin, he has to know if what he saw was a trick of the light or not. Eddie can’t let it go. 

When he finally does find the used napkin Eddie sees that it _ was _ black-brown snot, and that means it really _ is _dried blood. He folds it up like evidence and drops it into one of the smaller zipper pockets of his bag. Then he runs to the bathroom and scrubs his arms clean under soapy hot water until they are raw. He looks at his own reflection in the mirror and furrows his dark brows. 

Bill is sick and it’s serious, it’s really goddamn serious. Bill needs to get checked out by a doctor.

And yet, despite the fear, despite the urgency alight in every cell of Eddie’s body, and his utter determination to confront Bill about this after school, to drag him to the hospital if necessary; all it takes is for some dingus to trip the fire alarm and in the chaos of evacuation Eddie forgets again.

\---

Thursday morning Gym class. A special period field trip to the local pool. This term they are meant to learn how to swim. As if by fourteen and fifteen children grown in Derry Maine don’t know how to swim. As if every summer that isn’t a deadly spider trap isn’t spent mucking about in the river, or jumping like suicidal maniac paratroopers into the quarry, or racing precarious dinghies in the canal. 

Still, Eddie is grateful because it is this field trip that spurns him to a full remembering. What strips away the veil again long enough to count for something. Finally since that first awakening during a lunch that feels like too long ago, when Eddie had sidled up to Bill and felt his shivering fever through his jeans, Eddie sees Bill clearly.

The public pool is quaint, simple, unassuming in its construction. It is not a place that ever saw fit to dream of big college rallies, or Olympic teams training within its square footage and concave even lakebed. A rectangular chlorine lake, aquamarine and clear to the bottom where the black lines and floating strings of buoys alike delineate the rows. Still, it is rather pretty for a Derry building, the ceiling is a dome of glass that lets the light in and projects rainbow prisms after a downpour. It reminds Eddie of the shimmering walkway that connects the children and adult sections of the Derry Library.

Eddie still shrinks in on himself at the thought of public showers, at the squelch of damp tile beneath his toes, agonizing that he must be contracting athlete's foot with every step. He forgot his sandals and his shower caddy back at the school because he was late. He was late because he was convincing Bill not to skip. 

Gym has been something of a trial for Big Bill recently, his times are lagging and his energy doesn’t seem to be quite as high as usual. He’d called Eddie the night before to tell him he wasn’t going, to not worry, and that he just didn’t feel up to swimming.

Well, Eddie nipped that in the bud quick enough. Now Bill is in the row ahead of Eddie, they are stood six boys across waiting to set up for the freestyle swim. He is whispering something reassuring to Ben, who holds his arms crossed rather self-consciously over his chest. Stan sits off to the side, in his gym uniform observing the class. His frantic aversion to being submerged in water persists even now and his mother and doctor both wrote him a note, which the teacher begrudgingly accepted.

Eddie watches Ben and Bill, and finds a startling kind of comfort in how much of his view Bill’s back takes up. Even if his body type can be called slim, he’s got a solid, broad back and a frame that predicts his sturdy adult body. Eddie counts eleven distinct freckles among the spatter pattern across Bill’s shoulder blades and the underside of his arms.

After his turn doing the 100 meter butterfly stroke Bill exits the pool, shakes his head too and fro, and taps water out of his ear. He turns back to where Ben is getting out just seconds after him and shoots him a proud look and a brilliant grin. Ben goes a bit pink around the ears and honestly, Eddie can't blame him.

Then Richie comes up behind Bill, pinches his sides, says something crude right in the shell of his ear, and Bill loses it. Peals of laughter ring out in echoes over the water and to Eddie, in that one moment, Bill looks perfect in every way.

In the cant of his neck thrown back, sharp adam's apple jutting, rich laugh rolling across the echo of the pool. In the sunlight of the sky shining through the glass dome, distorting and projecting specs of light like sunflowers across his body. In his hair, vibrant strands of copper shimmering with chlorine. Shoulders broad, Big Bill even if they’re only fourteen, is fifteen and looks adult, tall, strong, immortal. 

Perfect. Perfectly fine.

Then a fleeting cloud covers the sun and Bill looks perfect no longer. 

Maybe it’s because Eddie is always looking at Bill, _ really looking _ at Bill in a way the others aren’t. Has always grown up copying him, studying the nuance of his movements, seeking out the key to bravery and strength in the lines of his friend’s face, and the true memory of Bill as he was when he was healthy. Maybe that’s why the veil shorts out around Eddie and allows him to perceive the real portrait of deterioration this town is pressing upon Bill Denbrough.

What Eddie sees when he looks at Bill in this one tiny flicker of shadow-time is a full-fledged sickness. The hollow of his throat is too deep and the pronounced way his collarbones seem to grind against the underside of his skin looks alarmingly to Eddie like the point of sharp scissors about to puncture paper. His cheeks are flushed unnaturally red, something that puts rosacea to shame sprinkled from his brow all the way down his neck. Bill’s eyes are fever-bright and dull all at once, almost unfocused like he’s struggling to land them on a distinct point. 

His frame looks stretched rather than strong, his ribcage isn’t just visible in the normal places granted to growing teenage boys, but also across his sternum where he should naturally have some muscle by now. His nail beds are white, with no distinction between the quick and his skin. Eddie sees now that it is because Bill lacks proper circulation to his extremities. They are pale, and look almost fake, waxen. 

Corpse like.

This time when Eddie watches Bill’s smile, it pulls more like a grimace of chattering teeth. A faint, almost purple ring rims the skin of his chapped lips and tells of coldness Bill should not feel in an indoor pool with heated water. 

Bill holds his body stiff, even as he lets himself be jostled between Richie and Stan, who has crept off his bench perch and begun smacking at the two in an impromptu pool noodle attack. Bill’s hand is not quite at his mouth, but it is close, resting across his clavicle where tendons connect and tense, pulling tight to fight the threat of a coughing fit.

_ Bill is sick. Don’t forget. _

Eddie forgot. Looked away and back to find Bill two weeks sicker in a blink.

God, how Bill looks worse. He’s going to die. He is, Eddie can feel it. Not right away but maybe over the next couple weekends. Shut up in a cold house, too feverish and delirious to eat, to get himself dressed, to stay warm. With nobody bothering to care for him, to even notice let alone address the blood he’s coughing up, or to take him to a hospital. Bill really is going to catch pneumonia and die. 

Well, shit on that then. Shit all over that.

As if Eddie will let that happen. 

Quite suddenly it all accumulates to boiling point. The fact of the door to Bill’s house being locked, the frustration Eddie feels at himself for forgetting _ again _ , _ and again, _ his hatred of this town that is trying to take Bill, Eddie’s _ best friend _ away from right under his nose! As if. As if Eddie will let that happen. Eddie _ will die _ for Bill before he lets that happen. Nothing on this blue, bloody earth is liable to stop him.

Eddie thinks too hard on his best days and the thinking begets panic, makes him want to reach for his inhaler, so instead he takes a page out of Bill’s book and just acts from his instinct. He sharpens his eyes and stares at a point just to the left of Bill that draws him in, where Eddie _ feels _ in his animal heart, rather than _ sees _ a distortion. He focuses on it and feels something almost _ whine _in the tension of the air.

The veil. As a physical manifestation, is there, perched on Bill’s back.

A shimmer gossamer thin, like webbing in the shape of a crawling creature. A leech that eats memory and dissolves intent, that breeds apathy and neglect. Made of light refracting strands, webs that slide and coat and curl around Bill, hugging him from behind. Something evil, something left over from the sewers that latched on like a parasite in order for the larger host to go on living.

Eddie hisses a sound of hate from deep inside his lungs. For once they are not constricted, for once he can breathe. Though this time, he does not even need air to mentally speak his spell. _ Get away from Bill. _

_ Get out of my goddamn way. You let me see him, you let me see him proper. Bill as he is now. Let me see him weak, see him sick, see him dying. I won’t eat your lies, I’ll burn them up. So help me God I’ll spray you with goddamn battery acid, really fix you for good this time. _

He stands there like a pire of holy energy, buzzing among the chlorine particles of the pool, ions of rage and love and protectiveness so fierce Eddie thinks he might rattle apart with the force of it. What is only the span of a second stretches to the sensation of an hour, a day, a week. For all Eddie knows he’s splicing dimensions and there is a very real risk of getting stuck on the filaments of between places, like bacteria sandwiched against two glass slides under a microscope. 

The risk of forgetting the important things about Bill all over again is greater than any of that so Eddie keeps his sharp, spiteful gaze, a gaze that his mother tried to teach him, but that Eddie learned well enough on his own out of bravery rather than fear, on that distorted little rippling parasite. He _ burns _ into it the way he knows Beverly’s clear jade eyes would if she were here to help him, eyes made of truth and love and strength, the color of a chemical flame.

Slowly, reluctantly, for Eddie and Eddie alone, and for how long Eddie is determined not to dwell, he banishes it. The veil lifts, lifts, lifts, until the offensive gossamer tendrils detach from Bill’s back and it flies all the way off Bill like a slippery second skin, disappearing to nothing.

Time returns, moments align, and just like that Eddie is keeled over on the bacteria strewn tile of the pool, wheezing and huffing, having an asthma attack.

\---

When Eddie wakes up hours later in a cot at Derry Home Hospital he’s not entirely surprised, but he also does Not have time for this. 

They run blood tests and his mother has them give him yet another redundant chest exam, one that he fails because she bullies herself into being present right at his bedside, and squeezes his hand so hard that Eddie can’t manage to catch his breath. 

He’s also utterly distracted thinking about Bill. 

Bill, Bill, Bill, and what Eddie can do for him now that the veil has been lifted, now that Eddie actually retains his short term memories, and enough wherewithal to recognize what is actually going on right under his nose.

This time there is no _ other _ force filling him, enabling him to bulldoze over and manipulate his ma’s will. Even at his insistence that he is fine, with his earnest attempts to leave, he’s only fourteen year old Eddie Kaspbrak and his efforts against Sonia fail. She sees to it that Eddie’s stay in the hospital spans at least two full days.

At least he is able to take advantage of the privacy of the visitors schedule to do some solid thinking. Like the time when Henry broke his arm, Eddie is filled with clarity.

Bill shows up at the hospital with Mike and Stan, who bring Eddie some flowers from Stan’s mother’s garden. Richie sends his regards in the form of a messily scribbled get well note, complete with an obnoxious peppering of sharpie drawn hearts. Unlike the rest Sonia has banned him from visiting Eddie, at his home and doubly so in the hospital. She's enlisted the help of the reception staff so there won’t be a security breach like with the broken arm incident. After a half hour Mike says has to go finish up work on the farm and Stan has about six Torah portions to study for a reading during this Friday’s Shabbat. 

Bill has nothing to do at home and so lingers long past the time the other two depart. 

“Y-you sure you're okay with me sticking around? D-don't need to sleep?”

“Naw Bill, you're good,”

But he isn't. It is almost a shock to Eddie’s system how bad he looks compared to Mike’s solid farm muscle, and even to Stan, who is trim but healthy, at least physically. 

Without the veil Bill’s illness, and thinness, are on full display. Bill is displaying other things too, namely his worry for Eddie. It makes sense after all, Eddie pretty much collapsed at his feet.

His is a quiet and sentinel-like hovering. Offering to get water, digging in his pocket for change and laying vending machine snacks on Eddie’s side table like offerings. It echoes some of his Ma’s patterns but with Bill there is no motivation besides a pure unadulterated desire to help Eddie be well again.

It's awful ironic, for Bill to act the caretaker when he is more in need of care than anyone.

Eddie finally gets Bill to settle down and sit in the chair next to his bed. They do not talk much, eventually Bill pulls out a sketchbook and starts penning at the pages. He leans his elbows on the mattress and lays the book against Eddie's covered hip. Barely half an hour passes before Bill’s eyes start to droop.

“You can nap, it's okay,”

Bill hesitates and bites a chapped lip. His under eyes are puffy and Eddie can see veins beneath the thin skin.

“Bill,” Eddie says, phrasing it more like a command this time, “It's okay,”

Bill gives him a glance, then nods sleepily and nestles his face into the crook of his arm, pen and sketchbook still held in his other palm.

He's out like a light in two minutes flat. Eddie runs a hand through his lank copper hair, devoid of the luster it normally holds, and his stomach knots over how hot Bill’s skin is.

Later, when the nurse comes in to check on him, Eddie tries to convince her to examine Bill. 

“He’s really sick. Trust me just check, please just check him he’s definitely got a fever,” 

She takes one look at Bill and back to Eddie with a funny kind of smile on her young pretty face. 

“What do you mean, he’s glowing. I’ve never seen a boy look quite so healthy,”

At Eddie’s unrelenting insistence she finally concedes to his request and places her inner wrist against sleeping Bill’s forehead. The edges of her expression betray a kind of indulgence Eddie is all too used to confronting. But she’ll see. As soon as she touches Bill his temperature will be all the proof the nurse needs to proceed with more conclusive tests.

Instead when she removes her wrist, the nurse’s face is self-satisfied and Eddie’s anxiety rises to peak.

“He’s cool, feel for yourself.”

Eddie does feel for himself and again his inner wrist burns with Bill’s reflected fever. He looks at the nurse wide eyed and hopelessly lost for what to do.

“But! But he’s burning up!”

She gives him an expression that is placating but admonishing all at once.

“Oh Eddie, don’t let your mother rub off on you too much, okay?”

She leaves the room and Eddie with his mouth trailing agape after her. 

He shuts it with a click. Fat load of help that did. Eddie’s mind races with confusion and despair until the only logical explanation slides into focus. Shit. Now is no time to play flabbergasted. Honestly what did he expect, this is Derry.

It's no normal illness, it's a Derry sickness. Something supernatural, spiritual. No Derry nurse or doctor can help Bill.

The realization begs a dreaded question; how can Eddie help Bill where the adults cannot, _ will not. _

He stares at Bill’s sleeping form and thinks he looks so very small and young. He reminds Eddie of Georgie and it almost makes Eddie cry for the thought of his final fate, nothing left of him but the empty husk of his raincoat. Bill is turning into a husk too. 

His breath comes more rapidly as Eddie wrecks his brain for an answer. He’s stuck, lost without a compass bearing, just like in the sewers. What’s the answer? Think Eddie, think!

Blood and a promise. An unbreakable vow.

They shared their blood in the barrens, each exchanging pieces of themselves. They all have a little bit of each other in them now. Eddie feels it sometimes. That little bit of Bill’s bravery in him whenever he stands up to his mom. He feels Richie’s Voice when he yells at a bully to get away. Beverly, gone so far but there’s a piece of her in him too now, he feels it when he looks in the bathroom mirror and sees defiant eyes staring back. Stan’s perseverance in the face of insanity, Ben’s ability to act in protection of those he loves, Mike’s power to see the bigger picture, to cut through the gazebos of life for what is really there. 

The more Eddie thinks about it the more he feels this could be the answer. To offer what he has, to bleed for Bill, and give him some of his own strength.

The fear of HIV and Aids is still very real to Eddie, truth be told. The blood pact had him panicking and over-medicating for weeks, as if sugar pills would do any good to a real infection. But this is Bill and they've done it before without consequence. Bill is clean and pure, like the blue light, Bill is good. 

Eddie decides to test his theory.

Among Stan’s bouquet of flowers is a white rose. Appropriate. White for purity and health, Eddie thinks as he pricks his finger on a thorn and lets a few drops of blood dissolve into the glass of water on his bedside table. It’s a spell, a witches healing brew for a wasting prince in a fairytale.

He gives it to Bill when he wakes up, to drink along with some aspirin Eddie only pretended to take. Bill is bleary eyed from sleep and his guard is already down around Eddie, so when he sternly tells him to take it, that it’s special medication, the other boy drinks it down without question. 

“Water tastes...different,” Bill says a little haltingly after the first sip. Eddie feels a pang of nervous excitement in his chest. It’s magic after all, and his healing spell seems to be working. Either that or Bill is tasting the blood, which is kinda gross if Eddie really thinks about it. 

“Just the aspirin, come on. Finish it. Hydrate, hydrate,” Bill’s eyelashes flutter, his cheeks regain a little color in his face and his eyes become more alert as he drains the glass.

“Wow, h-hell of an aspirin,” Bill smiles at him with clarity in his blue eyes and Eddie’s heart leaps a beat of ecstatic triumph. It worked! It really worked!

By the time visiting hours are over and the nurse returns to escort Bill away, he and Eddie are chatting animatedly. Bill looks good and sounds good, vitality spills out of him like a busted faucet and Eddie feels satisfied with the knowledge that he has done at least something to help.

To Eddie’s dismay, when Bill returns the next afternoon he looks just as sick and just as tired. Eddie repeats the dosage of blood, water, aspirin. Magic of a bond he doesn’t exactly understand. Color comes back to Bill’s cheeks and he seems lucid in the wake of each dose but it fades within the hour, and it becomes clear that this is only a temporary pick me up. Ultimately it feels like trying to put a bandaid on a broken arm. Eddie should know. The issue runs much deeper.

Frustration takes hold and Eddie resorts to praying to a God he doesn’t necessarily even believe in, as if through sheer bullheaded determination, and a request put in to the big turtle in the sky, he might gain the ability to syphon off Bill’s soul sickness into himself. 

Eddie pauses.

Isn't that just a thought.

That could...that could maybe be the ticket. That could work. After all, if a dose of blood and aspirin can act as a bandaid, why wouldn’t Eddie be able to entice whatever evil is feeding off Bill to jump to him. Trap it in a host with antibodies strong enough to snuff it out.

Eddie can handle it. If it’s Eddie who gets sick, comes down with a fever, it doesn’t matter if his Ma actually sees through the veil or not. She’ll jump at the chance to smother him with care. Eddie will go to a hospital while Bill never would. Even if the nurses find nothing wrong with him, his Ma won’t shut up until he’s plied with the medecins, bedrest and food that Bill’s parents wouldn’t even notice was a screaming necessity.

A transference. Why not? Sure it sounds loony but not more-so than Eddie’s blood perking Bill up the way a shot of adrenaline would. It could work. The seven of them have done crazier things.

Once released from the hospital, Eddie formulates a plan. He finds himself trying to do something he never thought in his short fourteen years, he would ever dare. Something other kids do as easy as swapping homework. Hell, Richie had done it to get out of a presentation like last week. 

Eddie purposely tries to catch whatever sickness Bill has. 

He begins by exponentially increasing his proximity to Bill. Logically the closer he is, the more sodas they share at Corner Street Drug, the more Eddie sleeps over in Bill’s bed, on those sheets with spaceships that Bill hasn’t changed since Eddie came over all those weeks ago - the more time Eddie spends with Bill, the easier it will be to tempt the transfer of germs to Eddie, the transfer of the slow, soft death spreading across Bill’s soul like a bruise.

Since last summer, Eddie has routinely risked his mother’s wrath, tears, and wails, when it comes to being there for his friends. Where his escapades had been sporadic, nervous flits into the dusk on weekends, now they are near constant. He has a purpose and he follows through like a man possessed. He slips out his window and into Bill’s more nights than he doesn’t, punishment be damned. 

Night after night in a quiet unlit house, where parents are spectral absentees, Eddie parts wrinkled coverlet from pilled sheets and shares his body heat with a boy who smiles softly and laughs indulgently at him. Not knowing that right now to Eddie, Bill looks terribly young, and terrifyingly frail.

In the caff Eddie tries to find ways of sharing Bill’s food. Mostly he offers his own because Bill’s lunches are paltry things made by a sick child’s inexperienced hands. He takes quick sips of his milk before passing it to Bill, making a point to share the straw. Bill puzzles at Eddie’s newfound disregard for spit swapping, but ultimately he seems happy to share. Richie eagerly offers his food to Eddie, tries to make a show of hand feeding him, but Eddie rejects him with a disgusted eye roll.

“Wash your hands sometime Richie, maybe I’ll consider it,”

“No fair! Bill’s as grimy as me!”

“Not likely,” Eddie snorts. Stan just looks at him like Eddie might be growing a third arm. Eddie is unconcerned, he knows what he’s doing. 

At least he hopes he does. There’s no manual to this thing. Eddie’s just acting on what his heart says seems right. These days his heart is set on sticking by Big Bill.

It's not as if there's ever been much a thing as personal space between them anyways. Not when riding double, holding onto Bill’s coattails, or sleeping in the same bed has been the norm since they were about nine years old. Still Eddie works to be generally closer to Bill when he talks. TRIES to get Bill to breathe or cough on him even, and everyone else looks at him like he’s lost his mind.

After a while with no real noticeable change to Bill’s health, it occurs to Eddie that maybe he’s going about this whole thing wrong. Maybe it’s not about the physical exchange, but the spiritual, the emotional. He realized a while ago that the weird soul bond between the seven of them seems to be activated by love.

But that, well that scares Eddie. 

Remembering what they did. In the dark of the tunnels. He blocks it out because what happened between them all in the sewers was so much more of a nightmare born from necessity under threat of being forever lost, doomed to die in that labyrinth of tunnels, than anything Eddie was ready for or wanted.

Eddie thinks about Ben’s kiss, how it brought Beverly back from the deadlights and it is this which turns Eddie’s mind from the blood pact to love, plain and simple between him and Bill. Eddie is still scared of what kissing Bill could mean in the greater scheme of things. He knows, or at least he’s been told, that men who kiss other men are...unnatural, dirty, that they get Aids and die. It’s not a defined personal belief of Eddie’s, but a mantra parroted by his mother, something that clings to him and makes him afraid.

It had taken him far too long to come full circle on the fact that she's been lying to him about his “sickness” for years, and it takes him too much time now to realize that it might be worth doubting her word on this matter as well. 

The sewers also come back full circle, and it makes his skin crawl. Eddie hates to think of it, that it happened all because he lost his internal compass. He feels guilt and inadequacy and shame drag at him even if thier uniting was Beverly’s idea. It fucks them all up honestly, they _ never _ talk about it, because none of them were ready and they should not have been made to do what they did, magic be damned, turtle be damned. 

But this is different. 

This is different and they are a little older, maybe it is the key to saving Bill. Love provided where he is so obviously being denied it. Hell, nothing else is working. Honest to god medical professionals can’t even see it the way Eddie does and he doesn’t know how long this bout of clarity will last. If he wastes this window of remembering and Bill dies on him, Eddie will never forgive himself. 

So, Eddie decides to kiss Bill Denbrough.

The question is, where, when the hell, and how?

\---

The final straw breaks on a Saturday afternoon. Eddie has been shut up in his house by his ma, who is furious at him and exacting a sort of tearful manipulation that makes Eddie grind his teeth rather than feel remorse for his actions. She discovered he was sneaking out at night, assumed it was to see Richie, nearly developed a hernia, and grounded him for a whole two weeks. 

She had the neighbor nail his window shut from the outside, and installed locks on the inside of both the front and back door, hemming Eddie in like he’s a patient in a crazy house. She also took away his phone privileges and has been posted up in her recliner ever since, a great sentinel fisting bottled cola in one hand and watching the front and back doors into the wee hours of the morning so Eddie can’t jimmy the lock and sneak out. 

The television drones and drones the sound of fat radiostatic insects and makes Eddie want to scream at her that she’s _ bullshit _. 

It’s been three days since he’s seen or heard from Bill and Eddie has a _ bad _ feeling. A horrible gut twisting, skin crawling, anxiety feeling that will not go away no matter how many puffs of his inhaler he triggers off. He can’t catch his breath and he can’t get his mind off the idea of going over to Bill’s. It’s an urgent pull that makes him feel like his skin is too tight, like his teeth are shifting inside his mouth, drawn to some powerful magnet. But it's the middle of the day and his mother sits in her lazy boy guard chair with her beady little eyes on either door. 

In the end Eddie resorts to flooding the upstairs bathroom. He gets ahold of his ma’s sanitary pads and along with an entire half-roll of toilet paper, flushes them down the tube until it’s spilling water into the hallway. Then he yells for her, high pitched and upset.

When she arrives, hair flying about her sweaty brow, wide-eyed and staring at him, Eddie makes a scene about germs, plays up the fact that the dirty water touched him, tearful and ruddy faced whining that his mother leans into all too well. She barely thinks anything of sending him to wash up in the downstairs bathroom. Eddie locks the door behind him, sets the tub running to buy himself time before she realizes he’s gone, and escapes out the narrow first floor window with barely any guilt at just how much water damage he’s about to do to their home.

At Bill’s house Eddie finds the garage door open on its track with no car and no Zack Denbrough sat on his workbench piddling mindlessly away. He passes by the shelves that house the maps to the Derry sewer system, and the spider web sprawl of red lines that delineate IT’s favored route through the city. One of which leads directly to Bill’s house… To his right is the projector and the ring of slides, dented, dirty, several slides missing, shoved in a bottom rung of the shelf. Eddie sucks air through his teeth in an anxious hiss.

As Eddie crosses and opens the unlocked garage door, he wonders furiously where such relaxed attitude was the eve of Halloween, when Bill needed it. 

The house is almost a mirror image of that time he came over to care for Bill and found him playing a soft sad tune on the piano. The kitchen is empty and the basement door is shut tight, the parlor is likewise devoid of life.

“Bill?” he calls out tentatively. Then stronger. “Bill!”

No answer.

He rounds the stairs, past crooked family pictures. His foot hits one that seems to have fallen and been propped up facing the wall on the bottom of the first landing. He picks it up and turns it over to find that it is an old picture. One of Bill and his parents when Bill was just a toddler, still besotted with that little bit of pudge young children carry so cutely. Eddie feels dust on the back of the frame when he adjusts his grip to lift it back to the wall and has an acute sinking feeling that this picture must have fallen down a while ago, without anyone bothering to put it back up.

He hangs it back on the appropriate empty wall space with care and passes a finger softly over the image of a younger, happier, healthier Bill.

To Eddie’s surprise and dismay, Bill’s room is empty. He scans the walls and table for evidence of Bill’s presence but the scatter of paper, schoolwork, model spaceship, solar system and globe is the same as ever. Clothes are strewn on the floor and clean ones are stuffed in the dresser. The bed is a pile of comforter and pillows on a bare mattress. Eddie’s baby blanket is balled up near the head of the bed, like Bill might have been using it for a pillow.

Eddie checks Georgie’s room as well as Bill’s parents’ but finds no one. No one seems home at all. Eddie retreats downstairs and uses the kitchen phone to call the others to ask if they’ve seen Bill. As each of his friends deny any knowledge of Bill’s whereabouts the bad feeling in Eddie’s gut gets worse and worse. Richie asks if he needs to go out looking, or if Eddie wants him over. Eddie tells him to hold off for the moment, that he’ll call back.

Where could Bill be. Surely not outside alone. Maybe his parents took him with them wherever they went. Calm down Eddie, there’s a perfectly logical explanation. Bill could be in Bangor for another speech therapy session. 

But his shoes are there in the landing, and his jacket is hung on a peg in the hall. Scuffed and grimy laced Keds from a summer of trudging through the barrens stare him in the face. Eddie knows Bill only has the one pair, and that the day Georgie died was the last time that year Bill got anything new. In the fall he wore last seasons jackets and in winter his snow pants were too short up his ankles on account of a growth spurt.

The image of Bill wandering around Derry, feverstruck in November wearing his threadbare baseball tee and naked feet makes Eddie’s chest tighten like a noose. He’s verging on another full blown asthma (panic) attack when a light bulb turns on and floods his brain. 

Bill’s empty mattress.

Georgie’s spaceship sheets are missing.

He scrambles to the basement door and wrenches it open on protesting hinges. He flicks the light switch only to find it burnt out, and he curses, staring into the widening rectangle of dark into which the recently carpeted stairs dissolve.

“Bill! Are you down there?”

Eddie listens and for a long beat he hears nothing. No laundry machine, no wash or dry cycle. 

Only dark, and silence.

Dark, silence, and- 

The accidental hollowing of the wind. 

But that’s not it at all. Eddie does not hear the wind. He hears the very faint sound of someone crying.

_ Bill! _

Eddie thunders down the stairs, blind in the dark with only his inner compass telling him the distance between each drop of a step and the railing to save him from breaking his neck. It is also by some divine, celestial luck that his palm braces upon a working torch, hanging upside down from a nail in the wall at the bottom of the stairs. He takes hold of it, brandishing the thing before him like a sword, or more like a dowsing rod. 

Find the blue, find me Bill.

He flicks on the light, dispelling the darkness from the corners of the basement, and Eddie finds Bill all right.

Eddie brings his hand to his mouth and nearly stops breathing right there.

Bill is slumped on the damp concrete floor of the basement, his legs folded beneath him like the bend of a paper straw. His left shoulder is tucked awkwardly into the side of his neck and pinched up against a wooden shelf that has collapsed to the far side. His fingers are gnarled up near his head, pulling a sopping mass of bedsheets from the gaping maw of the washing machine on top of him like a shield. 

Glass doorknobs litter the ground, blocks of turtle wax lie spilt from their container like clear bricks of ice. A life vest soaks up the rivulets of water drip, drip, dripping into the drain on the floor. Bill’s tears drip, drip, drip down his face. He is so small, quiet in his upset, understated and contained even now in his grief.

“Bill! What happened?”

Bill’s eyes snap open, his pupils are small in the glare of the flashlight and his expression looks like a twisted chimera of dread warring with relief. 

Immediately Bill tries to sit up, his legs slide against the floor, tangling in the wet sheets. He tries to pull himself free but fails miserably, succeeding only in dragging them along the ground and higher over his lap.“N-n-nothing!”

Eddie runs over, pulling the chain of a functioning ceiling bulb on his way, and kneels at Bill’s side. He peels Georgie's sheets away from Bill’s freezing rigid hands and off his lightly bruised knees and shins. 

“M’okay Eds, I-it's o-oh-kay,

Bill wipes at his face, smearing snot and tears alike against his sleeve.

“I just go- goh- got dizzy a-a-and I f-fff-”

Bill struggles for the words, fails to find them and instead launches into an explosive string of coughing. Wet, mucous, huck-up-your-lungs kind of coughing. The kind with the tendency to bruise ribs. He looks like he might be about to throw up, or pass out from the force of it, or both. Eddie rushes to support his body and Bill feels like a boy-shaped bag of bird skeleton beneath his hands.

“Easy, I got you Bill, I got you,”

Eddie scoots in close and pushes the cold wet blanket the rest of the way off Bill, he hugs him tight and Bill buries his face into Eddie’s shoulder, coughs racking them both now. He tilts Bill’s chin to rest on his shoulder and rubs his back, trying to impart some of his warmth into Bill’s stone cold skin.

Bill shudders once and then goes slack in Eddie’s arms. If not for his uneven breaths and the feeling of his neck moving as he swallows convulsively Eddie might think Bill had passed out. 

Eddie continues to rub Bill’s back in slow gentle circles and holds him firmly but not too tightly. He breathes in and out with his friends’ breath until Bill seems to have calmed down a little.

“E-Eh-dd-d- I-I-”

Bill tries to speak but between his chattering teeth and stutter it's an impossible task. He makes a noise of frustration and seems to be getting himself all worked up again. Eddie quickly moves to soothe him.

“Shhh. Let's get you upstairs and dried off, you can tell me what happened later,”

Bill pushes down on Eddie's shoulders with both palms. Not hard enough to hurt but enough to get Eddie's full attention. His mouth is twisted in a grimace of effort and he forces broken words past his chapped lips.

“I s-s-saw It,”

“What?”

“I-IT. I-”

Eddie pulls back abruptly, alarm bells blaring. He checks Bill over for injuries and casts a fearful glance around the basement but finds nothing on either front.

“Wh-What do you mean? What do you mean you saw? It’s back? Did It do something to you, hurt you?” Eddie can’t help the high pitched panic rising in his voice as his hands search over Bill’s boney frame. Please Not yet. It can’t be back already. Not with Bill in this state.

“It was a ref-fle-flection, ove-over there. I don’t th-think it was _ r-real _ real. Phy-physically at l-least, it couldn’t t-touch me,” 

Bill points a shaky finger at the pool of water leaking into or out of the drain in the middle of the floor. Eddie can’t tell the direction of the flow and he doesn’t like it one bit. It gives him the impression that they are stuck between places, that the clown’s sphere of influence has extended a webbed branch all the way to Bill. Be it fevered hallucinations or a real apparition, he needs to get Bill out of this basement quickly. This has become one of Its domains. Hell, this whole house might be.

“It t-talked to me,” Bill continues.

Eddie turns his attention back to Bill who is worrying his lip between his teeth, afraid to speak, biting it hard and turning it from nearly hypothermic purple to pale white.

“Go on Bill,” Eddie encourages with a squeeze to his shoulder.

“It said I could be ha-hap-py, that It wuh-wants me, with It,” Bill pauses and the next words seem to hurt as they come up. 

“S-said it wuh-was obvious muh-mo-mom and d-dad d-d-don’t...Want me. It said… It said that…in th-their absence It could l-l-ll-lov-lo-”

Bill makes a noise and swallows thickly, unable to finish the sentence. He licks his lips several times the way he does between finding words, then presses his mouth into a thin line and breathes through his nose. In and out, in and out.

With a quietness as if he is talking only to himself, Bill speaks again.

"A m-muh-monster, where my fo-olks don’t e-even w-want to s-s-see me... Maybe It’s right, I-”

Eddie’s grip tightens on Bill as if he might fade away right in front of him.

“Bill no! You don't believe that do you? You know it's a trick don't you? Come on, hey,”

Bill hangs his head, limp oily hair drooping in his face. Eddie's heart rate accelerates.

“It’s a trap right? Got it? A special lure just for you? Bill? Come on, Big Bill,” Eddie punctuates with a little shake.

“What about us? Huh? What about me? You aren't thinking of leaving me, Bill? Are you? We care about you, you gotta know at least that!”

“I kn-know! I'm not gonna leave Eddie,”

“Are you sure Bill? Tell me you didn’t agree to anything, didn’t make It any promises!”

“I didn’t promise It jack shit Eds, I swear. It was only for a second, I didn't promise it anything,”

“For a second what? Bill, what?” Eddie hates how high his voice is, how it verges on hysterical. He knows, somewhere in his heart, what Bill is about to say.

“Only for a second okay? I wa-wanted to be there, like Stan said he felt, I w-w-wanted to fl-float,”

The implication hits Eddie hard enough as it is but there’s something in the way Bill is saying it, attributing an even deeper importance than the general desire to die. The impact of Bill fainting, the how and why of his fall landing in such an irregular manner, with force enough to smash the wood shelves to pieces. Eddie understands. Bill saw It, he wanted to float, and _ float _ Bill did.

“Only f-for a second Eddie I swear,”

Eddie half stands out of shock and alarm. Adrenaline and panic scream at him to take Bill’s arm and run before he can’t movie Bill from this place anymore, until he’s the one talking to ghostly reflections in damp places of decay and death.

“We’re getting the hell out of this basement. _ Now _ Bill,”

Eddie’s tone comes out sounding clipped and angry when it’s really just tight from fear and dread. Immediately he realizes his mistake as Bill’s neck snaps up and he lifts his face to Eddie’s, eyes wide and awfully apologetic. He curls his fingers up in Eddie’s tee shirt, a child-like motion lacking all the naivety of a child. Bill is restrained even now, self aware and not holding Eddie so hard that he couldn't be shaken off. Like he'd let himself be pushed away if it was Eddie’s whim, like he's all too used to the action.

“I’m s-s-su-so-sorry, I sw-swear d-didn’t muh-mean to,” His mouth lingers in that slightly open shape he adopts when he’s really upset, like breathing is the only thing he can think to do.

“Bill, no. _ No. _ I'm not mad at you,” Eddie says as fiercely yet softly as he can, pulling Bill up to him and hugging him tightly, tightly, so Bill knows it’s okay. 

“S-s-s-sorry, I pr-promise I didn’t m-m-ake a deal,” Bill apologizing for anything sounds all too much like he did back in the sewers when he begged for them to leave him in Its dread embrace.

“Bill I’m not mad. You’ve done nothing wrong. Don’t apologize for stuff that isn’t your fault,”

Bill sniffs into Eddies shoulder and finally clutches at his arms tight enough for it to be called a grip.

“Can you stand? I gotta get you out of this damp. Where are your parents? Will they be home soon?”

Bill looks stricken, unsure, and Eddie thinks he won't answer. But then his last resolve flickers and goes out. Bill’s face crumples and he curls tighter into himself and into Eddie, he seems to shudder, like it's an awful ordeal to part with the answer he's been holding back. Finally, haltingly, he speaks.

“Th-thu- they went o-on a tri-trip. F-f-for the wuh-weekend,”

Eddie can’t help the hiss of air he lets through his teeth. Jesus effing christ. Bill would have died. If Eddie hadn’t come, Bill would have died this weekend.

“I-Eds look I’m only do-down here cause I sp-spilled soda on Georgie’s bedsheets. I d-didn’t want them to know, they might t-take them aw-way,” 

It's just one thing after the other with these clowns. Eddie tenses up and it takes a lot of self control not to hold Bill too tight, to the point of hurting him. He’s so goddamn angry at Zach and Sharon Denbrough. Bill keeps explaining himself and apologizing. Keeps justifying why he was in the basement, why he was vulnerable, why he is sick. He acts like he has to explain away his existence, give a justification for taking up space and moving around in his own house, it's painful to hear but Eddie knows Bill is in more pain. He’s babbling now, words and stutter spilling out.

“S-sometimes I can sn-sneak my stuff in my folks p-p-pile, the colors get mixed but it gets ju-just as clean. B-bet-better than having to be down here after dark, but th-this time I couldn’t h-help it. It ju-just don’t like going down alone…you know? B-because it's where I s-s-saw Ge-Georgie, or... _n-n-not _ he-him, uh-”

Bills agitation is mounting, Eddie can feel it buzzing under his skin, his babbling interspersed with more frantic stutters, his breathing speeding up.

“It pl-plays over like a muh-movie Eds. I s-s-ee him in the water, his face r-rotting, f-f-alling o-of the b-one. It's- I-”

“Bill you don't gotta explain a thing,” Eddie tries to reassure.

“I kn-know I jus-just! I h-hu-hate g-g-going down h-he-here auh-lo-lo-! _ Alone! _ ” His breath completely devolves into erratic hyperventilation and Eddie knows he needs to move them out _ now. _

“Shh it’s okay Bill, you aren’t! You've got me, you aren’t alone!” 

He hoists Bill the rest of the way up to his feet and hugs him proper.

“You aren’t alone anymore Bill, you’ll never have to go down here again and that’s a promise,”

Eddie supports Bill, still breathing in big gasps of air, tears welling in his eyes and falling down his flushed cheeks, up the basement stairs, then again up the stairs to the second landing, keeping Bill pressed tightly to his side for support the whole time. It’s slow going but eventually they make it up to Bill’s room and bed where Eddie deposits Bill and swaddles him in blankets. 

He has literally no circulation in his limbs so Eddie rubs at his fingers and hands to get the blood flowing, and doesn’t leave Bill’s side until his eyes are dry and his breathing is back to normal.

Downstairs, the phone rings. Richie, Eddie thinks to himself, and stands to go get it.

“You gonna be okay if I pop downstairs for a minute?” Bill nods at him, looking small in the nest of blankets. It makes Eddie want to climb in beside him and never leave as long as Bill lives. To take care of him and be by his side forever.

Eddie descends the stairs with a growing feeling, something that has been ruminating in the back of his mind and swelling in the cage of his chest for a while now. A feeling that this is its own kind of ritual, the same but different to what the Seven of them had together. Certain events need to repeat, need to cycle back to the beginning for what Eddie has in mind to work.

He decides to replay the events of last month. 

After reassuring Richie that he found Bill and that things are well handled, he returns upstairs to run Bill a hot bath with a generous amount of bubbles. After making absolutely sure Bill won’t collapse on him again, Eddie leaves him to undress and get in the tub. Then, he descends to the basement and transfers Georgie’s sheets up from the floor and into the dryer. 

Back in the bathroom, Eddie washes Bill’s hair and lets a peaceful silence rise with the steam. He pulls the drain and runs the hot water intermittently to keep Bill’s core temperature up. Bill is exhausted dozing in and out with his neck tilted back and head resting on the rim of the tub. Eddie lets him have his peace while keeping a careful eye that his mouth and nose don’t fall below the water line. His fingers and hands are utterly pruny by the time the dryer pings but Bill’s tears are washed away and he has calmed down considerably. The beginnings of a quiet smile even curve up on his chapped lips. His face and shoulders are pink from warmth. He looks alive again. Eddie washes Bill’s hair and towels him off, dresses him in warm clean pajamas, and props him up against a mountain of pillows back in his bedroom.

Eddie revisits the basement to get Georgie’s dry sheets. He glances over in the corner where he found Bill. 

Bill, tear and snot covered face buried in Georgie’s sheets. Bill, shivering and coughing alone in that corner of the basement situated directly over the drain. Like some offering, some tasteless prelude to his fate, the fate that _ It _ picked out for him. To die in a cold house, abandoned by the ones who should have loved and protected him unconditionally. To shut up, fade away, endure and disappear quietly from their lives like a good little ghost. 

Suddenly, much like at the pool, Eddie is possessed of a rage so strong that he almost feels the heat of it emanating from the pores on his skin. He stalks over to the corner next to the broken shelf and lowers his face about an inch from the drain. 

He licks his dry lips and takes a deep breath before speaking into it like some grime covered telephone receiver.

“You _ can’t _ have him, you hear me? You _ fucking clown _. I won’t let you,”

His words drop down the pipe, seem to plink, plink, plink, off the walls with the droplets of moisture. Silence follows.

“You have no power here because you’re hollow. You’re bullshit. You're made of hunger and lacking. Want to know what I’m made of, huh?”

Eddie breathes hard, his heart is hammering in his chest as he runs his next words over in his mind before he speaks them, before he makes their message real and everlasting. No more denying, no more running from this, from who Eddie knows he is. Bill needs Eddie and if Eddie really would die for Bill, he can at least speak truth to power now.

“I’m made up of love. I_ love _ Bill_. _ I am _ in love _ with Bill. I would die for Bill if he asked me, and even if he didn’t. You can’t trick me with your lies and your veils. You don’t have the power because you don't love anybody. You can’t. You just want to feed because you're empty. That’s why you can’t ever beat us,”

Silence endures. And yet, maybe only in Eddie’s imagination, somewhere far away, there is the sense of a pause that is deeper than the quiet. An eerie kind of listening.

“Nothing’s gonna stop me from saving Bill. Not a Werewolf, not the Leper, not a shitty Eyeball,” 

Eddie gets as close as he can without literally touching his lips to the filthy grate, his voice is dripping with the scorn of a thousand Sonia Kaspbraks, only his is a power imbued with actual, justified self-righteousness and irrefutable conviction. It makes Eddie bold, grown up, all-powerful in his own right, nothing to do with the turtle and everything to do with keeping Bill alive.

_ “ _ Sure as hell not a washed up excuse for a spider husk _ , so stay the fuck down the water spout, _ because the next time I see you I’m going to shove my arm so far down your throat you’ll choke on me and _ die, _”

Shaking from adrenaline, but entirely satisfied, Eddie grabs the dry sheets and hustles back up the stairs to take care of Bill. He shuts and locks the basement door behind him for good measure because screw that evil damp place.

Eddie repeats all the healing ritual steps with care. The Motrin and aspirin, the hot water bottle. Like a religious ceremony, he cares for Bill and tries to gently ease the healing intent of his affection from his palms into his friend.

When he kneels on Bill’s mattress and rubs Vicks on Bill’s back and then the front of his chest, his hands tremble a little. Because Bill’s skin feels like delicate paper, something that could easily tear, but also because Eddie is terribly nervous. When his hand crosses Bill’s hammering sparrow heart, Eddie meets his eyes and sees a mirrored nervousness. 

Bill looks down at him through red lashes, perfect _ blue _ bracketed by a slash of auburn sunset against the last deep part of twilight sky. To think Eddie could have missed the signs for so long, forgotten the clarity of these eyes, this person. To think that just a little longer, maybe only a day more, and Bill would have died forgotten.

Eddie leans in slowly, Bill’s breath hitches and he looks down at Eddie’s mouth, seeming mesmerized, breathless for what he can sense coming. As he has been many times across his youth Eddie is breathless too. Because the thing he has denied and been afraid of, but also known and deeply desired his whole life is about to come to pass. 

Finally, _ finally, _Eddie Kaspbrak kisses Bill Denbrough.

He feels a part of his self unlock. Then something electric rushes through the connection of their bare skin from Eddie and into Bill, from Bill and into Eddie. Bill breathes through his nose and surges into him, pressing their lips together again, reciprocating Eddie’s feelings, closing the circle, ending the story while beginning a new one, all wordlessly, all perfectly. It is beautiful. It is right. It is like coming home. 

After a moment Bill becomes shy, turning his face until he is pressed tightly to Eddie, and cries quietly for the relief of it all into the crook of his neck. Eddie soothes him, and strokes his hair like a mother might. 

They hug each other in silence on Bill’s bed, once again adorned with Georgie’s spaceship sheets. There is no need for a wordy explanation, everything that needed to be said is made clear between them. The house is still empty and cold but only insomuch as it is naturally drafty. The oppressive atmosphere is gone from the place and Eddie can feel that the ritual worked. The spell is broken and the prince is saved. The sickness is exchanged and the power taken out of it. The evil is dead.

Eddie sneezes.

A beat between them. Then, “You got me sick,” Eddie mock complains. Bill looks at him with wide eyes, his lip twitches upwards and the two of them burst out laughing, caught up in giggles and fits of coughing alike. Tears stream from Eddie’s eyes making them puffy and red round the rims, while snot runs from Bill’s nose. 

Bill wipes at his face and nods, still giggling softly. In a beat of impulsivity Eddie takes up Bill’s hand and entwines their fingers, bringing Bills knuckles to his mouth for a quick peck. Bill blushes scarlet to the roots of his hair but the smile he levels at Eddie is warm and bright, alive and perfect. 

Eddie makes a silent promise to preserve that smile, and vows that he won’t ever let Bill fall to the wayside again. 

“Eugh, we’re a sssight for s-sore eyes aren’t we?” Bill asks.

“Yeah, but I wouldn't look away for even a second,” Eddie replies.

**Author's Note:**

> I edit everything on my own and sometimes I miss stuff so if there are glaring typos, spelling errors, or narrative discrepancies please feel free to point them out.


End file.
